Adventurer, Seeker of Beauty, Bookworm

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Monthly Archives: January 2013

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She was I-don’t-know-how-many-years older than me with curly gray hair and a lovely smile; I was a broke busy college student. And yet, there we were talking about how awesome the Seamus Heaney version of Beowulf was. Did you know that he reads a version of it out loud and it’s really well done? I didn’t.

I did not get to talk to her for long because she was just getting my book for me that I had put on hold and then had to answer a phone call but I suddenly got this feeling…if we knew each other, we would be friends.

“We read to know that we are not alone.”

~C.S.Lewis.

I think as readers we get that characters become friends. Sometimes the people that change the course of our lives are people who are simply the creation of others. But I think that there is more to what C.S. Lewis is saying than just that. We read and suddenly we have a plethora of mutual friends. And so, I was just starting two new adventures by buying these books and this cashier was excited because I would be meeting her friends and walking through places she knew pretty well.

We were already mutual friends.

So one of the books was Beowulf. What was the other??

A vampire book. And I can’t stand vampires but I love this book.

Dracula.

I think I love the story because it intends to make me to hate the vampire. Unlike more modern rendition of these damned, blood sucking, lustful creatures…Bram Stoker really describes something to be feared and destroyed. (Well actually, someone could make the case that some of the more modern vampires should be feared and destroyed but that would be an entirely different post!).

So here I am meeting (and slightly falling in love with) Jonathan Harker and Mina and Dr. Steward. I have been loving (not to mentioned totally freaked out of) this adventure so far and will update you as soon as I and done with it!!

PS Have you read it? What did you think? Don’t tell me the ending until I am done with it but if you’ve read it we have some mutual friends as well 🙂 …or mutual enemies….whatever the case may be:)

I love reading people’s lists like this so I have decided to write my own. Every friday I will try to write a list of whatever top 5 I can think of whether it’s my top five favorite books or five scariest moments and this way, I will post at least every friday:)

Did you know that I started this blog exactly a year ago? Yay, for another great year!

So lets starts with a bloggish one:

TOP FIVE BLOGS!!

1. BadCatholic (Witty philosophy, has a writing style a lot like Chesterton…)

So, while I am still drudging away through words and more words of the editing process, I have been sadly neglecting my blog. I don’t just want to talk about editing again so I decided to share a link of a dance performance I was in. It’s just a short four minute clip of some awesome dub step dance, my little hobby for when I am not writing:) So take a quick break and enjoy!

I could start with the cliche smell of new pages and my childhood love of stories but that is not what has re-inspired me.

Pure, hard ideas have.

I have been to Barnes and Nobles and got some serious reading in, and I had a couple of really awesome conversations with some good friends of mine. That has made me ask myself: What are my goals? What am I trying to do? Am I doing everything that I can to get to where I want to be?What are your writing goals? I think that we all have ideas of where we want to get with life but sometimes we need to remind ourselves.

Because I know that I have been slacking off and while its ok to have bad days I really have so many exciting things to do and so little time that every moment should be used up. I want to start writing again. Seriously writing. This has inspired me to plot out my big writing goals.

1. My focus over the rest of my break is my story. I want to get a solid, nearly done draft which I can have people read without getting embarrassed. That’s when the real editing will begin.

2. After that, I want to start seriously submitting lots of short stories throughout the semester.

3. Over summer, I want to write my next book. Ok, this is ambitious but I have finished a complete copy of my first book. Things are looking encouraging. If I work as hard as I have been (maybe even a little harder) something is bound to happen:)

And I want to blog more often. If you have read anything about writing you have probably heard it: you should blog and build your platform and so on and so forth. That’s great but equally important is the fact that you are building your writing skills, yay! Let’s not forget that blogs are fun to read and write which is a nice reason on top of all the practical ones.

Now…

Go write!

Go live!

Go be yourself because that is the only way you will be able to do the first two things the best way possible 🙂

You may know that I am not the biggest fan of the editing process and that I have a manuscript which is the point where… it needs to be edited. There comes a point where it simply must be done and once I started, I realized that it was not actually that bad. In fact, it was rather enjoyable. I saw that I actually had a complete story and likable characters and was simply working with material now, not just creating new stuff.

Editing Step One:

After taking a while off you go through the entire story. I have heard this advice a number of times so after Nanowrimo I set the story aside and focused on finals and then Christmas break before going back to edit it.

Then, I took a couple days to go through the entire thing from cover to back editing every single little thing that I didn’t like. All of the pages were cluttered with scratched out words and circled words which needed to be changed and tiny scribbles of what I wanted to add. Now, I am starting the next part of the editing process.

Editing Step Two:

Retype the entire thing. This may seem time consuming (it really is) and a bit extreme (which it also may be) but it is really helpful. This way I feel more freedom to go in new directions if it seems to work better for the story. So that is where I am right now.

I hope this helps any other budding authors out there:) I’ll keep you posted in how the editing process goes!

He’s quirky. I like characters who have quirks. Quirks lead to witty dialogue which is irresistibly enticing!

He is smart. Unless they are as arrogant as Sherlock Holmes, I generally like smart people.

He likes adventures. Well, that is something we both share in common!

Who is he?

Well. That is the question isn’t it;)

Dr Who Experience (Photo credit: williamsdb)

He’s Doctor Who.

Up till now, I have been rather leery of the whole Dr. Who obsession. I mean, science fiction? It’s not my thing as much as other types of literature and movies are. But this show was recommended to me enough times so that I started watching it and really enjoyed it! I started with season five and skipped most of season six (a little to heavy on the science fiction side and a little lighter on the witty dialogue side) but am now starting season seven. Obviously, I can’t recommend the entire TV show but I can say that the fifth season was enjoyable:) I know I am always looking for witty shows, particularly if they are British 😉 so I figured I would share my thoughts with you.

Do you like Doctor Who? And better yet: do you have other quirky (British) shows that you would recommend to someone who is in the mood for some witty entertainment?

Well, it’s that wonderful point in the year where everyone looks back and forth between the past and future in a rather nostalgic but super hopeful way. I love it!

Let’s look back at my writing year: I started a blog and actually kept it going for an entire year, and I loved it! Bloggers and readers have given me lovely tips as I bumbled through my writing adventures. I was also brave enough to submit my short stories for the first time and actually completed Nanowrimo and got a writing blog up called A Fairy Tale Told. Score!!